In December, the handbell choir I belong to made its annual visit to the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona. It just so happened it also coincided with an exhibit there of work by the Colombian painter and sculptor, Fernando Botero.

I had seen some of his work before. It’s very distinctive. Most of his figures are, shall we say, extremely chunky. But I knew nothing about the man. I took photos of some of the paintings (and I did not find out what the names of them are), and decided I’d eventually do a little research and write a post about Botero for ARHtistic License.

Fernando Botero was born in Medellín  April 19, 1932. His father, a salesman, died of a heart attack when Fernando was four. His mother supported the family by working as a seamstress. As a young child, Botero’s exposure to art was limited to the Baroque colonial churches of Medellín.

When he was a little older, he was awarded a scholarship to the Jesuit School of Bolívar. In 1944, his uncle sent him to a school for matadors for two years. In 1948, his first illustrations were published in the Sunday supplement of El Colombiano, one of the most important newspapers in Medellín. He was only 16 years old. He used the payment he received to attend high school at the Liceo de Marinilla de Antioquia.

Botero’s work was first exhibited in 1948, in a group show along with other artists from the region. From 1949 to 1950, Botero worked as a set designer, before moving to Bogotá in 1951, where he worked as a newspaper illustrator.

He saved his earnings until in 1952, he had enough money to sail to Europe. He disembarked in Barcelona and then moved on to Madrid, where he studied at the Academia de San Fernando. He frequently visited the Prado Museum, where he copied works by Goya and Velázquez.

In 1953, Botero moved to Paris, where he spent most of his time studying the artworks in the Louvre. He also lived in Florence from 1953 to 1954, exploring the works of Renaissance masters. Later in life, he lived most of the time in Paris, but spent one month a year in his native city of Medellín.

Around 1964, Botero began experimenting with sculpture. Due to the high cost of working with bronze, he made his sculptures with acrylic resin and sawdust. A notable example during this time was Small Head (Bishop) in 1964, a sculpture painted with great realism. But the material was too porous, so he abandoned this method. He returned to sculpture in Italy in the mid-1970s and exhibited his characteristic bronze sculptures for the first time at the Grand Palais in Paris in 1977.

On June 10, 1995, while his son Fernando Botero Zea was serving as Minister of Defense, a bomb was placed underneath one of Botero’s bronze sculptures on display in Medellín’s Plaza San Antonio. The resulting explosion killed 23 people and injured 200 more; the perpetrators were never identified. A horrified Botero decided that the damaged sculpture should be left in place as a “monument to the country’s imbecility and criminality” and donated an intact replica to stand alongside it.

In 2004, Botero exhibited a series of 27 drawings and 23 paintings dealing with the violence in Colombia from 1999 through 2004. He donated the works to the National Museum of Colombia, where they were first exhibited.

In 2005, Botero gained considerable attention for his Abu Ghraib series, which was exhibited first in Europe. He based the works on allegations of United States forces’ abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraq War. Botero produced more than 85 paintings and 100 drawings in exploring this concept and “painting out the poison”. The series was exhibited at two United States locations in 2007, including Washington, DC. Botero said he would not sell any of the works, but would donate them to museums. In 2009, the Berkeley Art Museum acquired (as a gift from the artist) 56 paintings and drawings from the Abu Ghraib series, which can be seen online. Selections from the series have been regularly included in the museum’s annual Art for Human Rights exhibitions.

In 2006, after having focused exclusively on the Abu Ghraib series for over 14 months, Botero returned to the themes of his early life such as the family and motherhood.

In 2008, he exhibited the works of his The Circus collection, featuring 20 works in oil and watercolor. While his work includes still lifes and landscapes, Botero concentrated on his portraiture. His paintings and sculptures are characterized by their proportionally exaggerated figures.

Though he spent only one month a year in Colombia, he considered himself the “most Colombian artist living.” World-wide, he is certainly the best-known Colombian artist.

Botero died from complications of pneumonia at age 91, in Monaco, on September 15, 2023, just weeks before the opening of his exhibit at the Desert Botanical Garden.

Information for this article came from Wikipedia. Read more about Botero and the exhibit at the Desert Botanical Garden. And if you will be in the greater Phoenix area, the exhibit continues until March 31, 2024.